Lieutenant General Robert “Balls” Wilson leaned back in his chair at the end of the conference table, hands clasped behind his head. As smart as Admiral Riles had been, Denise knew that Balls Wilson had him beat. Air Force Academy, Rhodes scholar, All-American linebacker, Caltech PhD in computer science, combat fighter pilot, former commander of NORAD, the first black NSA director was a seriously formidable individual.
He insisted that his staff address him by his fighter pilot handle, Balls, a play on the sports implication of his last name, reveling in the fact that it made some people uncomfortable. Denise was one of them. Still, she had to admit she liked the man. As far as she could tell he sweated liquid charisma.
Arrayed around the table were Levi Elias, generally regarded as the best intel analyst the NSA had, Dr. Bert Mathews, the computer scientist who had been chosen to fill Dr. Kurtz’s shoes, and Karl Oberstein, the NSA’s chief of operations.
“OK, Denise, show us what you’ve got.”
Nodding to the general, Denise picked up the remote control, pressed the green power button, and walked to the front of the room. The digital display that formed the entire wall came to life, its high-definition background image a lovely high-resolution shot of Earth from space, an image so crystal-clear it had no counterpart in the civilian world, having been taken by one of the most sophisticated spy satellites ever created. If the satellite had been focused on the parking lot outside the Crystal Palace, not only could you have read the license plates, the multispectral imagery product could have told you how long the car had been parked there, from the heat of the engines. It could have shown you which parking spots had been recently vacated, from the differences in temperature of the ground that had been under the vehicles.
Denise pressed a sequence of buttons on the remote, pulling up the presentation she had spent the last two hours preparing.
“Balls. Gentlemen. I asked for this meeting to show you something that Big John brought to my attention this morning. The subject of the correlative data search was Jack ‘the Ripper’ Gregory.”
Seeing that she had their rapt attention, Denise flicked to the first slide. It showed the text message she’d received earlier in the day.
“I received this Big John alert shortly after noon today. What you need now is some context for the message so that you understand its importance.
“Several weeks ago Big John began reporting a sequence of data correlations with the Gregory search, data points that by themselves seemed very tenuous.”
Denise changed to a series of slides showing what Big John had identified as connected events.
“I’ll run through these quickly and then discuss the implied connections. The first of these events was the New Year’s Day virus from a little over a year ago. The virus came to the NSA’s attention for two reasons. It had the ability to encrypt data in a manner that our best methods couldn’t break. It also revealed the location of a computer that held another encrypted message, this one breakable, with text that alluded to dangerous activity within the Los Alamos Rho Project. This was the event that caused Admiral Riles to send Jack Gregory’s team to Los Alamos.”
Next came an image showing Jack Gregory and Janet Price standing and cheering at a basketball game.
“This was taken at the New Mexico State Championship basketball game that same year. I’ve circled in red the people occupying the seats next to Jack and Janet. They are, from left to right, Gil McFarland, Anna McFarland, Fred Smythe, Linda Smythe, Jennifer Smythe, and Heather McFarland. You’ll recognize some of those names from my first slide. The other person mentioned in Big John’s message today was Mark Smythe. He was a young allstate basketball player, playing in the state championship game.”
Balls leaned forward. “I remember reading about that kid. Fantastic young point guard as I recall. ESPN was comparing him to a young Steve Nash.”
Denise clicked to the next slide. “This is an article that appeared in the Albuquerque Journal a short while later. A local EPA inspector named Jack Johnson, Gregory’s cover name, had shown up at the Los Alamos hospital with an injured girl by the name of Heather McFarland. The story goes on to say that Jack apparently encountered a crazed homeless man who had been attempting to kidnap Heather McFarland. The two men fought, with Jack getting cut on the arm before the homeless man ran off. That man has never been seen again.”
Balls laughed. “I’d say the chances of ever seeing him again aren’t too good.”
Karl Oberstein snorted in agreement. “Not much chance of that fellow surviving an encounter with Gregory. Surprises me he managed to cut him, though.”
“Probably had to do with protecting the girl,” said Balls.
“Here’s another story from Los Alamos. Heather McFarland kidnapped and attacked by Dr. Ernesto Rodriguez, a top Rho Project scientist. He kills himself before arrest.”
“McFarland kid? Kidnapped again?” Bert asked.
Denise changed slides again. “This is from the Washington Post. It’s the story about Jonathan Riles’s murder of Dr. David Kurtz, after which he took his own life.”
The atmosphere in the room acquired a somber cast.
“This next slide is the AP story about the FBI attempt to capture or kill Jack Gregory and his team. Another black eye for the FBI folks, this one even surpassing Waco. A couple of Gregory’s team killed, a couple dozen FBI agents and civilians killed, Jack and Janet escape.”
Oberstein nodded. “I assume this is going somewhere.”
Denise pursed her lips. “A few more minutes and I’ll put a bow around it for you.”
Her curt response drew another chuckle from Balls Wilson. “Careful. She’s got your number, Karl.”
She began flipping through the slides more rapidly.
The FBI director murdered.
President Harris assassinated.
Senator Pete Hornsby, the key Senate voice against the Rho Project, dead in a car accident returning from his native Maine.
The three McFarland kids win the National Science Fair with a cold fusion device, a prize that is stripped for plagiarism.
Another AP story, this one about three missing Los Alamos, New Mexico, high school students: Heather McFarland and Mark and Jennifer Smythe.
Top CIA trainer, Garfield Kromly, found murdered.
Then the body of Eduardo Montenegro, the assassin known as El Chupacabra, found at Schriever Air Force Base, not far from where Jack Gregory is known to have hijacked the satellite uplink, reprogramming global GPS satellites to shut down the Rho Project’s nanite formula.
Denise ended her slide presentation and faced the general.
“Big John has tagged every one of these events with a very high correlation to my Jack Gregory search query.”
Levi’s nasal voice redirected her attention. “And what was Big John’s calculated degree of correlation?”
“The worst correlation was 0.873.”
“That high?”
“Yes. And there’s more. It turns out that Jennifer Smythe stayed several days at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, was identified by the security staff as a very accomplished hacker, and subsequently moved to the Espe?osa hacienda outside Medellín, Columbia. Not long after that, Don Espe?osa and a number of his guards were killed. After that, Jennifer Smythe just disappeared.”
“What about the other two kids?”
“Nothing firm, but a member of Espe?osa’s cleaning staff reported seeing two young Americans arrive at the hacienda on the day that Don Espe?osa died.”
“Jesus.”
“There’s one more thing. That day was Thanksgiving here in the good old USA. The same day Jack Gregory killed the Espe?osa cartel’s number one hit man, the same day he reprogrammed the GPS satellites.”
Denise paused. “Now we’ve learned that the FBI is set to monitor a computer chat session between the McFarland and Smythe kids and their parents tonight.”
The room was silent for several seconds. Then General “Balls” Wilson rose to his feet.
“Karl, I want that computer hacked, the computer that the FBI will be monitoring for tonight’s chat. Work with Denise. Use her antivirus back door. Bottom line, I want us in virtual control of that system when tonight’s chat session begins. Oh, and remember, that Smythe girl is supposed to be a talented hacker. Keep our data copy local, nothing goes out on the Net while the chat session is in progress.”
“But what about the FBI? Aren’t they going to grab that computer right after the session?
“Not likely. It would be a dead giveaway to their quarry. They’ll remain in stakeout mode.”
“OK. You’ve got it, boss.”
“Make damned sure I do.”
Then the general turned on his heel and was gone.